in inflicting the correction. And though they are not glad the offender deserves it, they are not sorry it is their duty to impart it. Saint Paul never severely reproved another, that he did not inflict a wound on his own feelings. Yet though he would rather have spared another than himself, he would spare neither when the imperative voice of duty demanded plain dealing. Gentleness of manner in our apostle was the fruit of his piety; the good breeding of some men is a substitute for theirs.

The conduct of Saint Peter and Saint Paul presents at once a striking instance of the integrity of Christian friendship, and of the imperfection of human excel. lence. Before the apostles met at Antioch, Peter seems to have erred in a material point, not in associating freely with the Gentiles, but in disingenuously shunning their society on the return of his Jewish friends. This fear of human

censure,

censure, which was not yet entirely extinguished in this great apostle, while it strengthened the prejudices of the Jews, weakened the influence of the other apostles; misled Barnabas "though "a good man, and a just;" and not a little alarmed Paul.

This vigilant minister thought the example so fraught with dangerous consequences, that he boldly remonstrated on this act of duplicity, -an act unlike the general character of Peter, which, except in one awful instance, rather inclined to indiscreet frankness. Paul himself informs us, in his Epistle to the Galatians, that he "withstood him to his face," not to gratify any resentment of his own, but because his friend was was to be "blamed;" not privately, to spare his confusion, but "before them all," to avert the danger. Nor does this Christian sincerity appear to have interrupted their friendship; for it did not prevent Peter

6

Peter on a subsequent occasion from alluding to Paul as his beloved brother. From this circumstance we may learn, among other things, that the "fear of "man" is one of the lingering evils which quits the human heart with the greatest reluctance; it shews that it may cleave to him, even in his renovated state, and that therefore the same vigilance is necessary in this, as in his previous character.

Peter on this occasion gave an instance of that prompt repentance which he had so repeatedly manifested after the commission of an error. He offered no justification of his fault, but observed a meek silence: we learn also from the recorded failings of Saint Peter, that this first bishop of Rome at least, did not arrogate to himself the claim of infallibility.

Saint Paul's kindness for his brethren never made him on any occasion lose sight of his courageous integrity. Con

sidering

sidering the Gentile proselytes to be peculiarly the objects of his care, he resolutely defended them from the necessity of submitting to the law of Moses, thus preserving to the Gentiles their liberty, and to the Gospel its purity. By his firmness in thisinstance, a great obstacle to the reception of Christianity was removed.

May we here be allowed to observe, though somewhat out of place, that the characters of these two apostles are brought forward with such remarkable prominency and detail, in Sacred History, that it would be a subject well worthy some able pen to delineate the characters of the men, and interweave that of their writings in some connected work. Thus placed in one frame, we should have a most interesting view of these two eminent persons as the representatives of the Gentile and the Jewish Churches of Christ. This representation, incorporated with the circumstances

stances which distinguished the first promulgation of the Gospel, renders every particular concerning them highly affecting.

But to return.-It is to be observed as a fresh proof of the honesty and the spirit of self-renunciation which governed our apostle, that when he reprehends the Corinthians for their imprudence in opposing one minister to another; -in the partiality and favouritism which he condemns, he makes no exception for Paul; the preference to himself above Apollos would not gratify a mind who, beside the danger to the flattered individual, saw the evil of opposition, of rivalry, of division, let who will be the person preferred.

He might have seen the dangerous and blinding influence of excessive prepos session and party attachment; when even his wise and virtuous contemporary,.

Seneca,